Pokemon Go sends Super Mario Run expectations sky high

The unimaginable success of Pokemon Go seems like an almost impossible target to aim for, but that’s exactly what Nintendo is doing with the release of Super Mario Run in December.

In terms of expectations, we all saw what happened when we delivered Pokemon Go. And honestly I was quite surprised by it myself,” Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima told Bloomberg.

There’s no doubt that more people are using smartphones to play games. And as this time we’re using Mario, that’s a very important intellectual property for us. And that’s what Miyamoto’s team is working on now: making sure it spreads out just as quickly as Pokemon Go.

So our expectations are big.”

Kimishima also expanded on exactly how Nintendo sees its new smartphone aspirations existing within its current business structure.

There’s an image of our future that our previous president painted two years ago: we had what we called NX – which is now the Switch – and surrounding it are our businesses for smartphones, theme parks, movie-related businesses," he added.

"We’re at the start – you will see various connections between our smartphones, theme parks, movie-related business, and merchandising that uses our intellectual property.

Our main business is the hardware/software business. In addition, our smartphone business has helped sell a lot of our existing packages. And it has really proved our original thesis: by releasing our software on the smartphone, it positively impacts our existing hardware and software business. And that’s precisely the synergy effect we were expecting. And as that has been proven correct, we have more confidence.”

Super Mario Run will be free to download, although this will only contain a portion of the game. Users will then be able to pay to access additional content and modes. The game is due out in December and has seen over 20m iOS owners register for a launch alert.